Io9, one of the most popular SF sites on the web, just ran a post on Dean Alfar, praising his story “Six from Downtown” (which you can read here at Charles Tan and Mia Tijam’s Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler):
“Six From Downtown” definitely reminds me of Link at her best, with its stark, dreamlike imagery. But it’s more brutal, with a host of images including a man fishing for mermaids (and then grilling them), and another man working as an exotic dancer and showing off his prehensile tail (and then using it to strangle a customer). The exotic dancer segment is also reminiscent of Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, for obvious reasons. And in the last section, a man comes home to find his wife’s upper half has flown away.
The post also features artwork from Usok 1 cover artist Kevin Lapeña (and pointed me to a keen interview with Kevin at The Design Inspiration), and cites a discussion by Filipina poet Barbara Jane Reyes on Magical Realism (something I’ll comment on in a post all its own, since it mentions Usok. Yay!) For now, let me just congratulate Dean, Kevin, and Barbara, and thank Charlie Jane Anders of Io9 for shining a spotlight on some deserving individuals.
